Students of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, represented Malaysia, and ASEAN at the Global Datathon competition along with five other countries and was declared the winner for their innovative and creative solution in trading of cryptocurrency.

The Center of Applied Data Science (CADS) in collaboration with Data Science Society hosted the first ever global Datathon challenge which saw students from the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Malaysia, emerging victorious with their creative and innovative solution on the trading of cryptocurrency, globally, having beaten five other countries.

The team of six students and three mentors from the faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya participated in a 48-hour championship, the Academia Datathon International University Data Science Society along with the simultaneous global participation of 130 students from renowned universities across five other countries, namely Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Croatia and India.

Sharala Axryd, Founder of CADS said, “We are proud to be a part of and most importantly to host the young talents in this very advanced Datathon that requires a high level of expertise. By being the winner of this first global challenge, it has proven that Malaysia is a competent nation with the right expertise and talent among these budding data professionals; and is on par with global players in the field.

This achievement is truly a momentous one for the students of the faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya.”

The teams were challenged to work on structured data that was universally understandable; cryptocurrency. They were given a case of financial time-series prediction with cryptocurrencies and its integration of knowledge from various sources – Crypto Currencies, Quantitative Finance, and Machine learning.

The case consisted of two levels with the first level being building a prediction model of the major cryptocurrencies’ prices with all necessary studies for that purpose; and the second level, to make an autonomous A.I. decision-maker for trading/investing. The goal was to build a successful investing/trading model on the cryptocurrency markets.

A total of 30 teams which consisted of 130 students participated and 19 teams qualified to semi-finals. The University of Malaya team emerged winner among the top three teams that were further shortlisted.

The team comprised of four undergraduates, and they are Sabrina Binti Kamal Izat, Nur Hidayah Binti Mohd Rosli, Prasanta A/L Sathasivam and Yee Xun Wei; as well as two postgraduate students, namely, Nur Baiti Afini Normadhi and Muhammad Nazrin Bin Napiah.

The Bulgaria Data Science Society gave the team data sets on cryptocurrency and they were required to work on predictions and develop a successful investing model on cryptocurrency. The team started off by cleaning the data, analysed them and identified the perfect algorithms that would produce the winning creative solution.

“The Datathon was an exciting and informative experience for the students and even the mentors. The students had the opportunity to sharpen their skills, gain global knowledge and exposure; to think out of the box when put into real-world situations and apply their knowledge in an effective and timely manner to develop solutions to problems that matter to society,” expressed Dr. Sri Devi Ravana, Head-Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya.

Similar to Hackathons, Datathons are where similar minded individuals with the profound love for data gather together to discover and share insights about large, rich, and complex data sets.

The Center of Applied Data Science (CADS) ASEAN’s first and only one stop platform and centre of excellence for Data Science is working towards nurturing 20,000 data professionals by 2020 and driving Malaysia’s workforce transformation by 2020.

About The Center of Applied Data Science (CADS)

Established in October 2015, The Center of Applied Data Science was set up to respond to the critical need for real world qualified data scientists and data professionals in the face of digital disruption. Its aim is to nurture a new generation of Data Professionals who can meet and exceed the needs of today’s data disrupted world through an accelerated and rigorous program of best-of-class mentorship that will solve real business challenges within organisations, as well as real-world situations outside.

The Center of Applied Data Science partnered with The Data Incubator, New York, US to bring ASEAN’s first Data Science accelerator program to transform the brightest science and engineering talents in South East Asia into qualified, top-notch quality data scientists. Further information about The Center of Applied Data Science is available at www.thecads.org